Cheated in Facebook competition

mahamageehad

Huh, I stand corrected. So here's the test for clarity:
I have a post with 4 likes on it on one of my pages. I liked the post myself, bringing that total up to 5. Then I shared the post from my personal page. Then I liked it there too.

Metrics for that post now stand at 6 likes - 5 on the post and 1 on the share. But my like is defo being counted in 2 places.

That's a mahooosive flaw actually, theoretically you could game the system but getting people to like your share PLUS the page post, therefore doubling your score. And that's just for starters. You could have multiple people share the post and like all of those too. In any case, I learned something. As the comp was illegal by Facebook's standards though I doubt it's a flaw that many people have been able to exploit. Interesting all the same.

mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes I shared it a few times and always instructed people to click the photo to go to the original post and like it there, because I was under the impression that only votes on the post itself would count?

Also I had been trying to avoid directly naming the company or any participants in this thread...!

Apologies, I'll pull the screenshot. I found it through context from the thread but didn't think to redact the info.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Huh, I stand corrected. So here's the test for clarity:
I have a post with 4 likes on it on one of my pages. I liked the post myself, bringing that total up to 5. Then I shared the post from my personal page. Then I liked it there too.

Metrics for that post now stand at 6 likes - 5 on the post and 1 on the share. But my like is defo being counted in 2 places.

That's a mahooosive flaw actually, theoretically you could game the system but getting people to like your share PLUS the page post, therefore doubling your score. And that's just for starters. You could have multiple people share the post and like all of those too. In any case, I learned something. As the comp was illegal by Facebook's standards though I doubt it's a flaw that many people have been able to exploit. Interesting all the same.

Many thanks for running that experiment for me, that indeed would be a huge flaw if they did use the likes on shares as part of the vote tallies, and one I'll be happy to raise with them if they come back and tell me that's how they did things

Why do you think the competition was illegal by FB's standards? I thought only ones that required people to share/tag as an entry requirement were banned?

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Apologies, I'll pull the screenshot. I found it through context from the thread but didn't think to redact the info.

Thanks just don't think it's fair to other contestants to be naming them when they don't have anything to do with it

Cathmandooo

Op I feel for you, you're right to stick to your guns on it.

Really interesting info in the last few posts, that type of competition is hugely flawed if they count shared likes. I can share a post, have the audience set to me only, share it 100 times and then like each share giving me 100 votes? Very flawed system.

I'm fascinated by the analytics though, thanks for sharing them

CeilingFly

Cathmandooo wrote: »

Op I feel for you, you're right to stick to your guns on it.

The op has fully accepted that it was neck to neck all the way. The op has said there were 20 votes in it from what the page said (over 1100 each). The company has used industry standard insights provided by Facebook that is more accurate than what shows on the page.

The op was pipped at the post.

And you think the op should continue.

As i said early on (and berated for saying so) there was a lot more to this than the first post and so it has been proven.

The op lost, albeit by a very small margin, but still lost.

CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

The op has fully accepted that it was neck to neck all the way. The op has said there were 20 votes in it from what the page said (over 1100 each). The company has used industry standard insights provided by Facebook that is more accurate than what shows on the page.

The op was pipped at the post.

And you think the op should continue.

As i said early on (and berated for saying so) there was a lot more to this than the first post and so it has been proven.

The op lost, albeit by a very small margin, but still lost.

Unless you can provide evidence to prove I lost out on votes or was 'pipped at the post' then I don't think you can make this assertion, thanks. You seem to keep missing my posts where I've said I was in the lead for at least half an hour after the competition was supposed to end so I don't see how I could have been 'pipped at the post' if it was judged properly. The point was that at the end of the competition my entry had over 1100 votes and the other one had between 1000-1099, therefore mine had more :rolleyes:

Mountainsandh

I'm with you on this OP, when there's a competition I always click on the link and like on the actual company page, since I would assume shares' likes don't count.

And it seems it's right that they should not count, what with the possibility to double/triple/xtuple like something that is being shared !

I guess if T&C were clear, it's definitely something companies could use to spread the word about something. They'd want to expressly tell users that the most shares and likes on the shares will win the competition, imo.

I think it's right to uphold a company to moral/principles, and communication standards.

Dial Hard

CeilingFly wrote:

As i said early on (and berated for saying so) there was a lot more to this than the first post and so it has been proven.

Jesus, you're like a dog with a bone.

kathleen37

CeilingFly wrote: »

The op has fully accepted that it was neck to neck all the way. The op has said there were 20 votes in it from what the page said (over 1100 each). The company has used industry standard insights provided by Facebook that is more accurate than what shows on the page.

The op was pipped at the post.

And you think the op should continue.

As i said early on (and berated for saying so) there was a lot more to this than the first post and so it has been proven.

The op lost, albeit by a very small margin, but still lost.

Yet there are timed screenshots countering what you say... the evidence shows the OP won.

CeilingFly

kathleen37 wrote: »

Yet there are timed screenshots countering what you say... the evidence shows the OP won.

No, just what the op saw gives that impression. The social media management company said the winner was the person who had most likes as per the Facebook insights for the page - this is in a way the Bible for marketing companies to judge the effectiveness of Facebook campaigns worldwide.

This is what they used (and quite correctly) and this gave the correct winner.

It has been explained above for the op. The op can contact Facebook for further info.

Competition was close, op lost.


Aa I said earlier, there's always more to these stories.

Here's a blog about how indeph Facebook insights are
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/new-facebook-insights/

Mountainsandh

CeilingFly wrote: »

Aa I said earlier, there's always more to these stories.

In this instance, the "more" to this story was actually a pretty intricate technicality that some facebook page managers admittedly also find confusing.

Competition was close, op lost.

You seem to have an unhealthy desire to revel in OP's demise.

If the technicality mentioned is the problem, OP also won, depending on interpretation of unclear rules, imo.

CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

No, just what the op saw gives that impression. The social media management company said the winner was the person who had most likes as per the Facebook insights for the page - this is in a way the Bible for marketing companies to judge the effectiveness of Facebook campaigns worldwide.

This is what they used (and quite correctly) and this gave the correct winner.

It has been explained above for the op. The op can contact Facebook for further info.

Competition was close, op lost.


Aa I said earlier, there's always more to these stories.

You're being misleading too now. There aren't just screenshots from what I saw, but also from my friends and from a friend of the winner. I think it's safe to say it's what everyone who saw the public posts at that time saw.

The company have not provided me with screenshots of the insights to show me their vote tallies. As I said earlier in the thread, if likes taken from post shares were included in the vote from the insights data then that would be extremely unfair because as has been proven by a poster above, this allows for an individual user's like to be counted multiple times. And until I see evidence to the contrary I dispute that there are private likes on the public posts that only the page owner can see. So I'm not sure why facebook insights are supposedly more correct to you than the public post like counts when the number of on-post likes should be the same in insights as the post, and using the 'total' engagements including shares is both cheating and not outlined in the T&Cs.

I can see there doesn't seem to be any convincing you that I have valid cause to seek an explanation from the company in charge.

kathleen37

CeilingFly wrote: »

No, just what the op saw gives that impression. The social media management company said the winner was the person who had most likes as per the Facebook insights for the page - this is in a way the Bible for marketing companies to judge the effectiveness of Facebook campaigns worldwide.

This is what they used (and quite correctly) and this gave the correct winner.

It has been explained above for the op. The op can contact Facebook for further info.

Competition was close, op lost.


Aa I said earlier, there's always more to these stories.

Here's a blog about how indeph Facebook insights are
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/new-facebook-insights/

Please show us where the PR company said that the results were based on Insights? The competition T&C don't mention Insights.

CeilingFly

kathleen37 wrote: »

Please show us where the PR company said that the results were based on Insights? The competition T&C don't mention Insights.

Eh - maybe check with the op who mentioned it and understand that there are more accurate reporting tools available to professional social media management companies than a screenshot by a punter.

All explained by other posters with experience in the area.

All explained in link above.

All information about how accurate insights are for page engagement available too. - Its why Facebook is a multi BILLION dollar company. (imagine the damage if it was inaccurate????)


But no company will provide such information to the public as its fairly valuable to competitors.

Op lost and just won't accept it.

Toto Wolfcastle

CeilingFly wrote: »

But no company will provide such information to the public as its fairly valuable to competitors.

Op lost and just won't accept it.

The insights in question are hardly top secret. Yes, they differ from the likes on the photo when you take into account likes on shares, but not by that much. It wouldn't be an issue for them to disclose them to the OP if they wanted to prove that they are in the wrong.

And anyway, Facebook provides a tool that allows company pages to see how many page likes, posts and engagements a competitor has had in the last week so that valuable information is already available.

Jurgen Klopp

I'd say most of these Facebook competitions are about as honest as Fr. Ted's car raffle

"The last Facebook competition I was in it actually turned out the winners of the competition were the same ones running it, so it's not THAT UNUSUAL"

CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

Eh - maybe check with the op who mentioned it and understand that there are more accurate reporting tools available to professional social media management companies than a screenshot by a punter.

All explained by other posters with experience in the area.

All explained in link above.

All information about how accurate insights are for page engagement available too. - Its why Facebook is a multi BILLION dollar company. (imagine the damage if it was inaccurate????)


But no company will provide such information to the public as its fairly valuable to competitors.

Op lost and just won't accept it.

I'm not saying their insights are inaccurate or otherwise I've asked the company on what basis their insights were used to produce a vote tally different to that on the public posts. As has been pointed out to you already the existence of private likes on public posts is not supported by the Facebook privacy policy, and using total engagements including likes on shared posts was not outlined in the T&Cs and would result in an unfair contest.

Again I'm not annoyed that I lost, as you say the votes were so close throughout the week that I was fully aware & accepting that it was just as likely that I'd lose than win. I'm annoyed about the lack of transparency. All I want is the company in question to provide proof that they counted the votes fairly because the explanation they've given me so far is not satisfactory. How can you not see that to everyone who was following the competition if they can only see the public like tallies, and assume these are the numbers on which the competition will be decided, that it's incredibly unfair to declare the winner on unseen figures that nobody was aware existed or would be a deciding factor. It seems like an awfully strange way to run a public vote that ultimately isn't decided in public.

Honestly I don't know what I've done to offend you this much, to date all I've done regarding this situation is to communicate in private with the company in question. I'm trying to explain my argument as clearly as possible and giving them ample opportunity to answer my questions. I didn't start this thread as witch hunt against the company (I haven't named them at any point), I simply wanted advice on what further actions I could take in order to get answers from the company as they have been uncooperative thus far.

If the only advice you have for me is to get over it and move on, then thank you, noted. You don't need to say it again, and the mod already said earlier that posts like yours are not helpful.

CeilingFly

But you were economical with facts. You do only recently admitted that it was extremely close at all times with just a handful of votes in it.

All I'm saying is they are using a very accurate reporting tool and that's their final decision.

The winner is a genuine person, the company managing the page us is a respected company and the company the page belongs to is a multinational company.

It obviously was very close, but you weren't the winner. Maybe accept that?

gizmo81

CeilingFly wrote: »

But you were economical with facts. You do only recently admitted that it was extremely close at all times with just a handful of votes in it.

All I'm saying is they are using a very accurate reporting tool and that's their final decision.

The winner is a genuine person, the company managing the page us is a respected company and the company the page belongs to is a multinational company.

It obviously was very close, but you weren't the winner. Maybe accept that?

How do you know what tools the company uses?

I don't think many people here know who the company who manages the page is.

CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

But you were economical with facts. You do only recently admitted that it was extremely close at all times with just a handful of votes in it.

All I'm saying is they are using a very accurate reporting tool and that's their final decision.

The winner is a genuine person, the company managing the page us is a respected company and the company the page belongs to is a multinational company.

It obviously was very close, but you weren't the winner. Maybe accept that?

I didn't 'recently' admit it was a close contest I never tried to hide that, and anyone who saw the screenshots could also see that it was close.

I know the insights tool is accurate, I'm asking what figures they used from their insights to decide the vote and to provide evidence to back up their dubious claim about private likes.

I accept that their decision is final. I'm not trying to get them to overturn it. I haven't accused the winner they chose of not being genuine, I haven't said anything negative about them at all. If the company is as genuine as you say then they shouldn't have a problem answering my questions honestly.

Maybe accept that I have the right to ask questions, and I will continue to do so until I have satisfactory answers. You've made your point by now I'd appreciate if you stopped harassing me over it and accusing me of being intentionally misleading.

cfarrell

I left a post on their Facebook page asking about the controversy, and pointing to this thread. They had the cheek to mark my post as spam!

Looks like they don't like the genuine feedback

Regarding the small claims court, earlier posters might be correct that they won't take the case. But you should call them on Monday anyway and ask them. You've nothing to lose by asking the question, and you might be surprised by their answer, or indeed they might be able to direct you to an alternative dispute resolution service.

groovyg

CeilingFly wrote: »

But you were economical with facts. You do only recently admitted that it was extremely close at all times with just a handful of votes in it.

All I'm saying is they are using a very accurate reporting tool and that's their final decision.

The winner is a genuine person, the company managing the page us is a respected company and the company the page belongs to is a multinational company.

It obviously was very close, but you weren't the winner. Maybe accept that?

Are you an employee of the company or something? How do you know it's a respected company? You seem to be defending them all through this thread and the op hasn't even named them.

_Whimsical_

How hard would it be for the company to provide screen shots of the results they used if it's a matter of dispute? Seems like it would be very easy to appease the OP and anyone else angry about the result.
Failing to respond to what understandably looks to be a genuine concern is surely very poor customer engagement and ultimately bad for their own reputation.

I have known people run competitions through smaller business facebooks who always give prizes to their friends. Surely larger companies would understand that transparency is essential in these situations. If they're unwilling to respond to calls from several people to release the data that proves the OP has not won I'd be suspicious.

mahamageehad

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Many thanks for running that experiment for me, that indeed would be a huge flaw if they did use the likes on shares as part of the vote tallies, and one I'll be happy to raise with them if they come back and tell me that's how they did things

Why do you think the competition was illegal by FB's standards? I thought only ones that required people to share/tag as an entry requirement were banned?

Well, in general most reputable companies won't run like and share comps for a reason! in this instance though, I haven't seen a link to any terms and conditions so that in itself would render the competition illegal. One of the requirements (and I'll have to check my files in the morn for exact wording) is to provide a proper T&C and one of those must be a statement releasing Facebook from any liability or association. Most of the links you'll find online refer to the general Facebook comp rules, but jurisdiction also needs to be taken into consideration and EU rules are stricter. We usually apply the strictest possible interpretation of the rules to all regions and for comps like this we'd always have an external, publically viewable web page about the comp complete with T&C available. Hell, we won't even use a pic you sent with you signing a disclosure!

If the company (not the PR people) are using one of the larger social media management systems, it could be theoretically possible for them to pull a timed report from the comp end, but accuracy with 3rd party APIs may make that pointless. I work a lot with data verification hence my jumping in on all this.

CeilingFly

groovyg wrote: »

Are you an employee of the company or something? How do you know it's a respected company? You seem to be defending them all through this thread and the op hasn't even named them.

Another childish "you work for them" comment - no I don't work for them, but I do know who they are as its listed in a marketing journal and the company - dr oetker, is a very large and well respected company.

Op came on shouting "cheats" was very light on the facts and has been given plenty of information from various posters to confirm that what the company says is correct.


And despite all the verifiable information, some posters are suggesting small claims court!!!! Now that is ridiculous.

_Whimsical_

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

How hard would it be for the company to provide screen shots of the results they used if it's a matter of dispute? Seems like it would be very easy to appease the OP and anyone else angry about the result.
Failing to respond to what understandably looks to be a genuine concern is surely very poor customer engagement and ultimately bad for their own reputation.

I have known people run competitions through smaller business facebooks who always give prizes to their friends. Surely larger companies would understand that transparency is essential in these situations. If they're unwilling to respond to calls from several people to release the data that proves the OP has not won I'd be suspicious.

All I want is transparency! I work in science and in my work we have to be very clear and specific about publishing our methods of data collection and analysis, and are expected to release raw data on reasonable request. All I'm asking for is the same degree of transparency from the company so I can see what they did and judge for myself whether it was correct /in agreement with their T&Cs.

groovyg

CeilingFly wrote: »

Another childish "you work for them" comment - no I don't work for them, but I do know who they are as its listed in a marketing journal and the company - dr oetker, is a very large and well respected company.

Op came on shouting "cheats" was very light on the facts and has been given plenty of information from various posters to confirm that what the company says is correct.


And despite all the verifiable information, some posters are suggesting small claims court!!!! Now that is ridiculous.

I don't who the Pr company is so thats lost on me but why can't they be transparent with the op instead of shrugging her off. Why can't they show her the results?

CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

Another childish "you work for them" comment - no I don't work for them, but I do know who they are as its listed in a marketing journal and the company - <redacted > is a very large and well respected company.

Op came on shouting "cheats" was very light on the facts and has been given plenty of information from various posters to confirm that what the company says is correct.


And despite all the verifiable information, some posters are suggesting small claims court!!!! Now that is ridiculous.

No one has given verifiable information to prove what the company says is correct, that would be impossible unless it came from the company themselves. Posters have put forward theories to explain what could have happened but at the moment they're just that. And it still doesn't address the question about whether using a page insights figure that is different from the publicly visible figures is fair if not explicitly outlined in the T&Cs. Also I'd suggest perhaps editing your post to redact the company's name as I've tried so far to maintain their anonymity in this thread (which is funny because you earlier accused me of orchestrating a smear campaign against them).

mahamageehad

Just want to state that I'm neither accusing the company or the OP of lying, feel like it needs to be said as this thread has gotten pretty heated. I have no horse in this race, just wanted to shed some light on grey areas where there maybe be misunderstandings.

Realistically the company should just release the data to the OP privately, but unless they took screenshots at comp end (and it would bloody amaze me if they didn't) then it may be more difficult than expected as figures would have changed since. I can't think of a way natively to pull such specific time sensitive data, and while some 3rd party tools can do it, the brand/agency may not have access to those. Again, it would be surprising, but not unheard of. Realistically a few people posting on the page will make very little difference, they'll just hide your comments so only you and your friends see them. Or mark you as spam. You could try reaching out to the head company directly, lodging a formal complaint rather than engaging with the local office. Whether it's worth it I dunno, that's up to you.